Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. See boil2.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A circumscribed inflammation of the skin, forming a necrotic central core, and suppurating and discharging the core; a boil.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A superficial, inflammatory tumor, suppurating with a central core; a boil.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a painful sore with a hard core filled with pus
Etymologies
- Latin fūrunculus, knob on a vine that "steals” the sap, diminutive of fūr, thief (modeled on latrunculus, robber, diminutive of latrō, latrōn-, bandit); see bher-1 in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“Sunday, April 17, 2005 furuncle etc. I am currently afflicted with a furuncle (or a carbuncle or just a plain nasty boil) on my inner thigh that make sitting down a very delicate operation.”
“Buddy felt vindicated (even if at that very moment there was in the middle of his chin a furuncle the size and temperature of an oven-baked hors d-oeuvre); felt both humble and heroic, and was more than ready to put his martyrish shoulder to the wheel.”
Skinny Legs and All
“A few drops of Apis 3, shaken with twelve tablespoonfuls of water, a tablespoonful of this solution every three hours, generally relieves the pain in a short period, promotes suppuration, effects the discharge of the decayed cellular tissue, and a speedy cure of the furuncle.”
Apis Mellifica or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent
“June 17, the examination of a fresh furuncle on the same individual gave the same result, the development of a pure culture of the same organism.”
The Harvard Classics Volume 38 Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology)
“-- The fourteenth of June, a new furuncle appeared on the neck of the same person.”
The Harvard Classics Volume 38 Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology)
“Blood from the arm at a distance from the furuncle remained completely sterile.”
The Harvard Classics Volume 38 Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology)
“-- June fourteenth, the same individual showed me a newly forming furuncle in the left axilla: there was wide - spread thickening and redness of the skin, but no pus was yet apparent.”
The Harvard Classics Volume 38 Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology)
“If I ventured to express myself so I might say that in this case at least the osteomyelitis was really a furuncle of the bone marrow.”
The Harvard Classics Volume 38 Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology)
“In brief, it appears certain that every furuncle contains an aerobic microscopic parasite, to which is due the local inflammation and the pus formation that follows.”
The Harvard Classics Volume 38 Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology)
“The following days, the blood from the finger remained absolutely sterile: but that obtained from the center of the forming furuncle gave an abundant growth of the same small organism as before.”
The Harvard Classics Volume 38 Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology)
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘furuncle’.
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Awesome Names for Your Heavy Metal Band
onslaught, gamecock, chthonic, hoarfrost, kernicterus, keelhaul, simulacrum, clavicle, interregnum, catafalque, gravamen, blunderbuss and 47 more...
maire sounds like a furry carbuncle,a boil that has burst and been left unattended so long that there is green mold growing on the edges...a condition one might wish to exist on auntie's hirsute husband perhaps... Nov 1, 2007